


Rest At Home

by OtakuElf



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bees, F/M, M/M, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, mystrade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:53:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10026728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: John and Sherlock retire to the country.





	1. Home Sweet Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oleta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oleta/gifts).



> For Oleta. Sherlock and John in retirement. Sherlock beekeeping, John writing The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with help remembering from Sherlock, also blogging. Both men napping when the mood takes them. Lestrade and Mycroft visiting. Some equivalent of take-away, if such is possible, or Sherlock or John becoming a gourmet cook, the toast of their small neighborhood. Good, enjoyable neighbors.
> 
> Originally posted in "Requests"
> 
> Thank you to Lunamoth116 for beta-ing!

Sherlock had never thought of his transport wearing out. Thinking back, he searched through his Mind Palace for the first inkling that his body was not going to be able to continue as it always had. The arthritis, he supposed. It had been a surprising weakness. Not the weakness that came from overdosing. Or from forgetting to eat, as he had so often done before John had bounced into his life with that military stride. Once Sherlock had gotten rid of that psychosomatic limp, of course.

“Sherlock? What was the name of the prison guard who helped Mia Payden escape custody? I’ve quite forgotten it, and can’t seem to find it in my notes.” John peered over the wire-rimmed reading glasses he needed even when the font on his laptop was set as high as feasibly possible.

“Fletcher,” Sherlock told him, flexing his fingers. Really, the bee stings were doing some good. Not much swelling, and no pain. In fact, he’d not had so much as a twinge in his hands since he’d started the hives. “Mandy Fletcher.”

“Your arthritis acting up?” John asked, peering down at his keyboard now as he hunted and pecked.

“Not at all,” Sherlock said smugly. 

“Well, then you won’t mind getting me a cuppa, will you?” John said absently.

The tall detective, still svelte after all these years of running about after puzzles, watched his blogger for a bit. John was stouter than he had been when they first met. It was reassuring, actually. His doctor had been so very thin after Mary’s death. Losing both his wife and child in something so senseless as a car smash had taken the heart out of him. 

Mycroft had spoken in his usual overbearing manner to Sherlock at the time, reminding his brother of Sherlock’s own “death” and its effect on Dr. John Watson. John took such things hard. When he loved - and John did not give his love easily - he loved with a whole heart.

John still missed his wife, still thought of the lost child with all the intensity of a lost dream. Once a month the doctor took the train into the city to visit their graves. The consulting detective could remember watching John visit the empty grave marked with Sherlock’s name. It made him unlikely to complain about John’s absence on those occasions.

Gladstone, the bulldog pup that Sherlock had brought home in a fit of charitable insanity, dozed at John’s feet, warm in the radiance from the fire. The canine was drooling on the floor again, in spite of the terrycloth John had laid down over the hardwood floor to catch it. Sherlock had not complained about that so much as the malodorous gases that escaped from the creature’s nether regions with a fair frequency. Sherlock was convinced that both the salivary leakage and the methane were increasing as the dog grew older. “Sherlock,” John had said with patience, “don’t be an idiot. Gladstone has always farted and drooled. You’re not experimenting on him, either. Not to measure the amount, and not to stop him from doing it. It’s normal for bulldogs.”

After observing his partner and housemate for a time, Sherlock turned to the electric kettle and set about making tea. 

“Perfect.” John took a sip of tea so milky it was almost white. “Just what I needed. Thank you!” With that, he went back to his typing.

Of course it was perfect. Sherlock had taken into account the weather, the humidity of the living space, John’s current medications, and what they’d had for luncheon. It was simply a matter of observation, and acting upon what one obtained from it. Sherlock’s own cuppa contained enough sugar to stand a spoon up in, as John frequently told him. Of course, Sherlock’s cups of tea were often cold by the time he actually consumed them.

Today he took a hot mouthful and savoured it before pulling his apron from the hook by the pantry. It read: “Baking is science for hungry people”. There was a slate-grey one for John as well, stating: “One shot. One kill” and another in black that Sherlock reserved specifically for when his brother had come to help out after John’s surgery. It read, “Clearly I have made some bad decisions”. Of the three aprons, only Mycroft’s was immaculate, although he had used it often with a gravity that said aloud, “I am ignoring this label.” Sherlock had purchased all three from a webcomic’s sales site.

John did cook. He made risotto, beans on toast, and a number of very simple foods that did not require following detailed instructions. It was not that John was not interested in eating, or that he was unable to follow those directions. It was that the man could not be bothered. It was lack of interest, not inability to cook.

Moving into the farmhouse had been something of a revelation with regard to food. Mrs. Hudson was sorely missed. She had passed away quietly in her sleep at the ripe age of ninety-seven, chronically plagued by her hip, but still refusing to use a wheelchair.

There was an Indian takeaway place in the town nearby, as well as an Italian restaurant that was not nearly as good as Angelo’s. Angelo had retired, and lived too far away to cook for them. Unless Sherlock and John were heading into London, those - along with a handful of very precious tea rooms - were their options for food. Therefore, Sherlock had taken it upon himself to provide meals. It was useful, the task, in that the timing required for cooking for the pair of them meant that he did not get lost in his Mind Palace for days at a time. While the bees were largely self-sufficient, Sherlock’s notes on them required strictly measured time periods.

Sherlock was stewing chicken. They purchased plucked and dressed birds from the farm next door, as well as unprocessed milk for Sherlock’s experiments with mold cultures.

Today was a challenge, as he was cooking for four, instead of just for John’s delectation. Sherlock tended not to notice too much about the taste of food unless he was observing others. Usually he knew what John liked and skewed his measurement of herbs and spices to that. With Mycroft and Lestrade joining them, that changed the balance of how the man cooked.

Sherlock crossed the thick oaken planks that had appeared when John ripped up the ancient, cracking lino. Cleaned and properly stained, they gave the house a solid, cozy feel.

The furniture had originally been their modern pieces from the flat on Baker Street. The skulls, cow and human, had made the transition, and remained. The wing chairs and matching sofa, that had replaced those chrome and leather bits from the London flat, were the gift of a grateful barrister client. They were comfortable, though upholstered with large cabbage roses. 

Sherlock’s affront at the decorative choice had lasted only until the first time the detective threw himself down upon the sofa in a sulk. John, who admitted that his taste was not posh, quite enjoyed the vivid wing chair he had chosen as his own. The motionless form of the encouched detective, fingers steepled before his face, had moved after a quarter of an hour. Parting his fingers, Sherlock found John watching him with bright humorous eyes. 

“The sofa can stay,” came before the fingers steepled again.

That was long ago, of course, and now Sherlock had become used to the horrifically patterned furniture. Though it had taken him some time of lying down with his eyes closed to acclimatize himself to the wing chairs.

After getting the chicken and vegetables assembled and cooking in the pots on the stove, Sherlock entered from the kitchen, drying his hands on a cheerful hand towel, which then became part of the living room detritus. The lanky git threw himself down on the sofa next to his friend’s chair. Keeping his nose alert of any complication to the chicken simmering on the gas stove, he steepled long fingers before his face and prepared to catalog the wildflower seeds he was expecting in the next post.

The fire popped and crackled behind the chainlink enclosure, and two of the inhabitants of the house slept quietly in its warmth.

John pressed his palms against closed eyes. The coolness of his hands - poor circulation - eased the ache, but did nothing for his memory. Frustrating to lose the past. He’d noticed that Sherlock took longer to access his Mind Palace. Not cripplingly long, of course. The difference was that sometimes his old friend fell asleep while processing - like now, as a soft snore came from the direction of the couch. It was echoed by the dog on his terrycloth towel before the hearth.

It was comforting, John thought, to be together, dozing by the fire - Gladstone chasing rabbits in his dreams and Sherlock doing much the same, only with criminals. The retired doctor found himself watching them both sleep, muscles twitching, each mumbling as the firelight flickered over their sleeping features.

He missed Mary. Of course he did. The thought of his beloved, crazy ex-assassin wife here with himself and Sherlock would have been perfect. Visits by Violet and whatever young man had caught her fancy - and survived her mum’s and Uncle Sherlock’s fierce protectiveness, her Uncle Mycroft’s security checks, and her father’s strong temper. John thought that both Mary and Violet would have loved this place.

The wing-back chair before the file was inordinately comfortable, the milky tea soporific, and the elderly ex-soldier drifted into dreams of gentle family that might have been.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock in the country, but not a lonely life.

They were not alone, of course. Two old men retired to the country - they had company.

There were the children in the town who crept into their gardens - at first on a dare, and then remained as Sherlock co-opted them to help with transforming the landscapes for his planned hives. Being paid with an old-fashioned high tea, including fairy cakes, scones, clotted cream, honey, and jam, brought the boys and girls around regularly. If Sherlock Holmes knew the details of everyone’s life in the town, it was due to his little band of “irregulars” as he called them. 

After a few childish accidents were treated by Dr. Watson, John received his own little band of followers. It helped that Sherlock would occasionally drop comments on issues involving the children in John’s presence. Protective instincts to the forefront, the doctor was the bane of neighborhood bullies, whether they were children or adults. 

Of course, the pair were visited by adults as well. Generally petitioners arrived seeking assistance with some petty mystery. The few who came in search of assistance with adulterous spouses were sent back away with the response, “Tedious.”

The police came on occasion. Those with thick enough skins, and - as Sherlock put it - “a grain of intelligence” were somewhat welcomed back. 

John kept his licensing up to date, did some locum work, and was seen in town more often than his housemate. Yes, people did still make that same old mistake of taking their relationship for one of homosexuality. After a while, it was stated as “our old gentlemen”. John had given up protesting, though not on flirting with attractive women. If anything, they seemed more likely to flirt back, as though his relationship with Sherlock made him safer. He never did bring any of them back home.

Sherlock was in town often, but was rarely noticed, as costumes and disguises were still the man’s delight. Janine had dropped by once, but only the one time, and she’d stopped to ask an elderly housewife, complete with market basket, for directions. It had turned out to be Sherlock practicing his feminine limp in the lane. Molly Parsons, nee Hooper, her husband George, and their children visited annually. 

They’d had Philip Anderson arrive early one morning with one of the most bizarre locked room cases of their career together. No one had gotten punched, John had used his legally registered hunting rifle, and another successfully prosecuted criminal ended up as a guest of Her Majesty.

No, they were not alone. And everyone here seemed to know everyone else’s business. John had commented that a country venue meant fewer suspects for crimes, which should make solving them easier. Sherlock scoffed, “John. This is not the nineteenth century. Criminals have vehicles. And GPS. The internet and smartphones allow for international access even in the smallest places.”

“Even so,” John argued, “How many more suspects have we had to deal with in the city than out here? London is huge.”

“John,” Sherlock said in that tone of pity for the lack of intelligence in the goldfish around him, “London is huge, yes. But it is still a village.”


End file.
